Africa Day six

Woke, after another sweaty night, to the sound of roaring. Chris told us it was lions, probably about 1km away. There were also leopard tracks right by the camp, leading to the shower where he had obviously stopped for a drink. They passed very close to Teri's tent!

Teri rode with Mark today as she is suffering a bit from the heat, and Mark likes the air conditioning on. We see more animals, and a single warthog in the distance.

At our morning drink stop we see yet more butterflies, then continue driving seeing more weaver bird nests and a steenbok deer, though I have yet to conquer manual focussing.

After lunch we take the road out of this section of the park and towards the campsite at Nossob, some 200 kms away. The landscape changes subtly, with small hills as we travel over the tops of dunes and down their sides. It's all still very grassy though, with many trees, though these are all small, and several are dead. In areas where there are lots of grass it feels a lot like driving through a sea, with the bushs and trees forming islands.

We camp half way to Nossob, with large storm clouds on the horizon. Some of us then drive to a small pan close by the camp and watch the springbok, oryx and wilderbeest there, and admire the nest of the sociable weaver bird.

Back at camp we shelter as a heavy rain storm hits, then Chris cooks us a pasta dish. As we start eating an electric storm starts, and continues to light up the sky for several hours. There is both fork and sheet lightning, and we need no extra lights while we sit outside.

Africa Day five

I'm up fairly early after a hot, sweaty night; just in time to see the sunrise.

We pack up our tents and then Chris gives us all a quick lesson about the origins of the Kalahari area, and the Boer war. Our concentration is effected by a jackal that wanders into our camp and seems as fascinated to watch us us we are to watch him.

We then drive round to the next campsite expecting to be able to fill our water containers, but a pride of lions have invaded the camp. There was a male, about three grown females and several cubs, all sleeping in either the A frame or on the ground in front of the long drop toilet.

We stayed and watched them for about 30 mins. Not much activity, they had obviously settled in for the day! We did see two of the cubs suckling on their mother though. We were quite glad it wasn't our campsite they had invaded - how do you pack up camp when lions are lying around, Chris reckoned they wouldn't be leaving until late afternoon. They were lovely, and we were very lucky to have seen them.

We continued to drive around, seeing oryx, springbok, ostrich and various birds. Again we were driving through clouds of butterflies! We saw another Kari Busted, and then a couple of yellow beaked hornbills.

After a drinks stop (couldn't use the toilet there as there was a bees nest in it) and a lunch stop, we reached our evening camp site. A luxury one, there was a shower (a tap over a hole with a half wall round it) and the cold water runs quite hot from the sunshine.

We can also see a bataleur, an eagle with red beak and feet, from the site, and have our own resident quail type bird running around.

Dinner is Bobotie, a South African speciality of spicy minced meat topped with an egg/milk mixture and baked, then served with rice and a peach chutney.

Africa Day 4

We left our campsite at just gone 9 with our full convoy of six vehicles. There was a hold up further down the road when we had to wait for a large number of cars and people who had arrived to attend a funeral. Must have been somebody very important as the police were there to sort out the traffic.

Next stop was Kathu for fuel, then a long drive past iron mines and a manganese mine. Lots of mine tailings which dominate the generally flat scenery.

We take the turning to Hoteszel, then turn again towards the border crossing at McCarthy's Rest. Takes a while to get across the two borders, but no real problems. First stop in Botswana is at Tsabong for a fuel top up. Botswana immediately feels more open than S Africa with less fences round the houses and more people walking in the streets. It's a very prosperous country with many diamond mines and a stable government.

Our drive through Botswana starts on a very normal road, but with butterflies on every verge. This Is something we find everywhere, butterflies, mainly whitish/green, but with some brown and some yellow ones. We end up driving through clouds of these wherever we drive in this area of Botswana.

Another driving hazard is tortoises; we see several crossing the road, including a large leopard tortoise that we stop and look at.

After a few hours the surface changes to loose sand. We travel on reduced tyre pressures, and meet no one coming towards us during the rest of our trip. One section is hazardous becauses there are many ants living in the sand leaving us having to avoid large holes made by anteaters: not a problem we've ever encountered in the UK.

We enter the Kgalahadi Transfrontier Park, and the trail changes to harder sand with bushes close on both sides. Another hour later we finally get to our camp site for the night. Tents up then Chris lights a fire to warm up our lasagne for dinner while the sun sets. After dinner we spend some time admiring the full moon before going to bed.

Africa - Day 3 - Part two

A long day travelling with Chris! We left the apartment at about 8.45, filled up with fuel then set off driving round to the south of Johannesburg. We are now in a convoy of three vehicles as we have been joined by Rick and Mark in their rented 4x4. At 10.30 we stopped at a mall and bought more water, snacks, toilet paper and the accessory for uploading photos to my iPad.

Left the mall at about 12.15 after a burger at Wimpy then drove until we reached Vryburg to buy more biltong. Chris says he has some really great biltong from here, and it was certainly better than the stuff we bought in the German butchers on our first day. Biltong can be 'wet' or 'dry', fatty or lean. We got wet, fatty!

We finally reached our campsite, Red Sands at Kummerman at about 5.45 where we meet the rest of our group. There is Ossie and Conrad in separate cars and Armin and Liesel in a smaller car.

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Africa - Day three 11th Feb -Part one

I now have a device for transferring photos into the blog, but as I'm sitting here in a camp with no internet I can't update the blog. However I'll try to keep writing it as we go along, then update when we get back.

Here's the apartment where we were staying.

A yellow finch building a new nest outside the Wonder cave.

The Wondercave, one of the largest we have visited.

One of the cheetahs we saw in the Rhino and Lion park, just before being fed.

And later, enjoying his food!

Mick playing with the lion cubs! They were delightful.

The baby serval who loved the lacy frill on my dress, and playing with the lens cap.

There were five rhinos in the park, and we saw them all as we were leaving. 

Africa - 9th Feb 2017

A great day spent exploring an ancient gold mine, care of Gavin at the Kromdraai Gold Mine Museum, then a trial safari in the Lion and Rhino park next door.  Some amazing photo ops as we watched the cheeters being fed and played with a baby Serval.  Mick tried the 4x4 capabilities of the vehicle and got used to driving it, and Teri and I practised taking photos.  We had intended to visit the museum of the Cradle of Humankind for our cultural fix, but failed due to lack of time.

Back at the apartment we handed our rigid suitcases over to Chris for safekeeping, and drove to another shopping mall for a steak dinner.

I have realised that I've forgotten to pack my card reader for the iPad, so have no method of uploading photos onto this blog.  I'll try to buy another one tomorrow when we stop for Rick to get supplies, otherwise I'll get one in Johannesburg on our return.  There will be no wifi coverage now until we get back to Joburg in 11 days time, then I hope to have a marathon blogging session to cover the intervening days!

Africa 8th Feb 2017

We landed in Johannesburg this morning!  Flight was a bit late, and it took us a while to get through immigration, then find a taxi, but we finally arrived at our lodgings for our first two nights at about 9.30am.  We have a lovely apartment with a kitchen, comfortable lounge and two bedrooms.  Not the most promising area at first sight, but very close to where Chris, our safari guide, lives.

We get a message to meet Chris at the local Wimpy, where we finally make contact after several months of emailing each other.  Chris has brought our 4x4 to us, ready packed with tents, sleeping bags etc, and gives us a quick introduction to the area and what to expect for the next few days.

Then we wander round the shopping mall, buying German dried sausage, nuts and dried fruits for our lunches, plus water, wine and beer.  I even find a fabric shop and buy 4m metres of wax cloth and some printed sunset pictures to make into placemats.

Back to the apartment, and we pack the 4x4 with our safari clothes.  We also temporarily remove the fridge so that Teri can sit in the back for the next day.  Our evening meal is at the Ocean Basket in the shopping mall.  An excellent meal of fish, calamari and prawns washed down with a nice white wine.  An early night for all of us; we go to bed at just after 8am!